Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 07 Dec 1999 14:44:07 +0100 | From | Hans de Goede <> | Subject | Re: Linux headed for disaster? |
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>In article <cistron.E11uj1h-0005I6-00@the-village.bc.nu>,< >Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> wrote: >>and have it build my a SBLive! module for my system and do the dependancies. >>Ditto for dpkg. > >We actually do something like that: we have a script (make-kpkg) that >will build modules for your kernel and create a nice package for that you >can install. You run it from your kernel-source dir and it will automatically >pick up the right kernel version and configuration for the modules. > >Wichert. > >-
I would like to take this even further, when you install a third party driver, vmware's modules for example. they: -install their src in: /usr/src/drivers/vmware -compile it against the current kernel, assuming that the headers from the running kernel are always in /usr/src/linux-version and if that doesn't exist in /usr/src/linux, and install the module(s). -whenever I compile a new kernel, it knows about the /usr/src/drivers hierarchy, and when I do make modules, it does a make modules in all it's subdirs, so that the third-party drivers for the new kernel get buidl automaticly. This of course requires the passing of some info about the new kernel, but that should be doable. Dito for make modules_install. -whenever I install a new kernel package (rpm or deb) the rpm also knows about the /usr/src/drivers hiearchy and rebuilds them too.
This is just an idea, not the solution. But I think the solution should be something amongst the lines of driver-packages with some special info, which are: -automaticly build on install, keeping the sources somehwere for later kernel installs. -automaticly rebuild on a kenrel compile -automaticly rebuild upon a kernel install from a package
If we could come up with a standard for this, this would be a tremendous help for a lott of drivers, even for binary one's since they could come up with their own abstraction layer which is rebuild every time, keeping the binary part the same (like oss does, and the disk on chip driver form m-sys too.) This standard should be distribution and platform independent!
This way we have the best of both worlds, no binary compatibility to maintain and (allmost) transparant support to the end user.
I'm willing to spend time on this idea, if I get backing for the concept from enough people to know that it will actually be used in the long run ( Alan? ).
Regards,
Hans
p.s.
Please cc me I'm not on linux-kernel, although I do read the web archives from time to time.
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